The Worst Thing
by Jaycie Victory
Summary: "The worst thing about the apocalypse was her. Pollyanna and Hermione Granger rolled into one, with an extra dash of self-righteousness. She should have been Walker fodder long since. How the hell was she still alive?" How would Greg House cope in the Walking Dead world? How would Cameron complicate that? House AU; dark but not gory; Hameron sorta. This is the apocalypse after all.


**A/N What even is this? I can't explain. I just know it took hold of me while I was in the middle of a major House binge - long before I saw the episode where House dreams he's up against zombies - and it wouldn't let go. This story had to be told. Even though I'm terrified of zombies. Even though it's set in The Walking Dead world but only features two characters. Even though it's by far the darkest thing I've written (you have been warned).**

 **I realise this is likely to only appeal to a (very) few. But... I'm kinda proud of it. And it's the first thing that got my writing juices going in ages. I like this piece. I really hope you will, too.**

 **Let me know what you think. :)**

* * *

The Worst Thing

The worst thing about the apocalypse was his leg.

Figured.

You'd think in a world with the very real threat of your viscera being ripped out and eaten before your eyes the undead would be the worst thing.

But, nope.

It was still his leg.

Why? Because leaning on a cane looked a lot like a Walker's shuffling gait.

He'd had trigger-happy uninfected take a potshot at him more than once. One had even winged him.

Of course, some of those people knew exactly who they were shooting at and why; a case of "there's the bastard", rather than thinking he was already dead.

He hadn't exactly gone out of his way to make friends, even before the world had gone to hell.

XXX

Wilson had gone early, carried off by cancer and morphine, holding House's hand.

He hadn't gone soon enough, though. The contamination/infection/patient zero – whatever it was – had already taken effect.

House had ended up killing him twice.

The second time had been far less peaceful.

It was sheer luck that had saved House from being infected himself, which almost bothered him more than the rest.

When talking a snarling, roaring Wilson down hadn't worked, he'd shoved him away with his cane; Wilson had tripped on the rug in their motel room and landed headfirst on the standing lamp. He'd been impaled through the prefrontal cortex.

If not for that, House would have been bitten that day, AKA long since dead.

Wilson would probably be pleased at that turn of events.

He'd always wanted to save House.

* * *

The worst thing about the apocalypse was her.

Pollyanna and Hermione Granger rolled into one, with an extra dash of self-righteousness.

She should have been Walker fodder long since.

The coolly detached self-preservationists were already gone.

Narcissistic weasels had only made it a little longer.

And the only reason they had lasted as long as they did was because of his return.

He'd made sure any patients that died died again. He'd been ruthless in quarantining those infected – at least, in the early days. In the later days, once it became clear that short of speedy amputation there was no way back, he'd become ruthless in a different way.

As soon as the nature of the epidemic became clear, House had been determined to get back to the hospital. Determined not to let it fall.

He had masterminded its transformation.

Wilson would have found some kind of meaning in that. Something beyond the simple truth that it was House's best shot at surviving.

XXX

"Gotta say, I'm a little surprised to see you alive."

Cameron folded her arms. "Pretty sure that's my line."

"News of my demise was greatly exaggerated." He spread his arms in a grand gesture.

"And Wilson's?" she asked softy.

"News of his isn't," he replied, a little more quietly.

She nodded. "You faked your death to avoid prison; so you could be with him in his last days."

He waited for her eyes to soften, to gleam with unearned ideas of his kindness, or desire to do good.

She seemed distracted, tucking her hair behind her ears as she glanced round the dim lobby. (The generator only came on when it was essential; firstly to conserve fuel, secondly when they had realised the sound could attract the dead.)

"You don't seem surprised to see me." To his chagrin he sounded a little piqued.

Her gaze settled on him once more. "That's because I'm not. I knew you were here."

He cocked his head. "Now, how would you know that?"

"Before communication was cut off – before my hospital fell to the dead – there was talk of an insane genius in Phillie who had turned his hospital into a fort." She arched an eyebrow. "It wasn't too hard to fill in the blanks."

House rolled his eyes. "They had a hospital at their fingertips and they were overrun? Doctors are such morons…" Then he pretended to look caught out, covering his mouth with one hand. "Oh! Present company very much included." He batted his eyes at her.

She ignored him, back to looking round the lobby. "So, where's everyone else?"

"They're gone." He turned as he spoke, leaning into his cane as he walked down the corridor. She fell into step alongside him.

He half-expected her to hand him a chart and beg him to take on some bleeding-heart cause.

"The patients?"

"The patients, the doctors, the orderlies… All of them."

She stopped dead, eyes unfocusing. "It's just you?"

He resumed his walking, his tone the cheerfully indifferent one he reserved for speaking of the unimportant or moronic. "Some left for so-called safer places. Some tried reasoning with the infected outside the hospital – you can imagine how well that turned out. Then there was the time a janitor unexpectedly died from a heart attack and we didn't find him before he changed. That mowed our numbers down pretty good. It wasn't too long until there was just my stalwart band of merry goons remaining." His tone was grimly mocking. "Then they were gone, too."

"When you say gone…?" She slowed down as she spoke. He slowed to match her. "Foreman? …Chase?"

"Chase left a couple of months ago. He thought we had a better shot trying to reach the military base in Carlisle than staying here."

Her jaw firmed. "Then he's dead, too." She turned away a little as she exhaled, but when she spoke her tone was contemptuous. "Idiot."

House blinked. "Pretty sure that's my line. You're the plucky do-gooder who never gives up. _I'm_ the fatalistic misanthropist who doesn't give a rat's ass. Did they mix up our scripts again?"

"If he left, he's an idiot. There's no way he survived."

"You did." House pointed out. "Chase is a born weasel. They are very hard to kill."

She didn't reply, her jaw firming further.

House made an effort to modify his tone. Softening his voice always cut through Cameron's defences. Even when it was totally specious. "What happened out there, Cameron? Why did you come here?"

She met his gaze; her eyes were calm. "I didn't have anywhere else to go."

He waited, but as the seconds ticked by, realised he wasn't getting anything further from her. Yet.

"Fine. You can stay. On one condition."

She lifted her chin a little. "What's that?"

"That you don't be an idiot." He leant into her personal space, voice rising.

She didn't give ground. Her lips curved in a wry smile. "I promise."

* * *

The worst thing about the apocalypse was her eyes.

Those accusing, weighing, do-gooder eyes.

Which were currently rounding with horrified dismay.

"You don't want to find a cure! You like the way things are! King of your dung heap, and so few people to bother you with their pesky emotions! God, you probably think the world is better off this way…"

He grimaced. This was Cameron all over. Not nearly so good at reading him as she thought she was, but just good enough to get under his skin. Like a whining mosquito.

"Got it in one!" he said with false joy.

"No…" She breathed, eyes darting between his. "No, that's not it. You're House. You always put yourself first – except if there's a puzzle to solve. Then you'll put everything at risk to beat it. You're telling me in all this time you didn't once try to figure out what caused the epidemic? I don't buy it."

Green eyes seared into blue, pulling unwilling words from his lips. Another unpleasant Cameron trick.

He retained enough of himself to at least state them with indifference.

"I had a live Walker here under guard when the hospital was still fully operational," he admitted. "I scanned its brain. Ran diagnostics. Performed a live autopsy. The whole nine yards. I thought I had correctly diagnosed the problem." There was a pause. "I was wrong."

Cameron sounded intrigued. "You experimented on it?"

"She, not it," he corrected her. His eyes focused on the floor; it was only then he realised he'd ceased to meet her gaze.

"She… who?" she said slowly. When he didn't reply, she spoke again, her voice a command. "House."

"She volunteered to go. So did Foreman." House's tone was detached. "I suspect her compromised immune system is why she turned so quickly after being bitten. In the end, I had a matched pair to work on. A Walker and an infected." He looked back up.

"That's how Foreman died?" Cameron's tone was a horrified whisper. A crease formed between her eyes. The one that always formed when she was trying to work something out. After a moment, she shook her head. "No – no way. Foreman once pricked me with a contaminated needle because he thought it might save his life. There's no way he'd volunteer himself. Unless…" Her eyes flew to his.

"Unless Thirteen started showing symptoms of advanced Huntingdon's and went off on a Kamikaze mission to bring me a Walker," House completed.

Her smouldering eyes burst into full blaze. "You mean you goaded her to."

He nodded. "Yes. By that point there was no one in bad enough shape to expect them to die any time soon. I had to get hold of an infected subject somehow."

She ignored this. "You knew she'd try to sacrifice herself. And you knew that was the only thing that would make Foreman go with her!"

He nodded again. "Yes."

She folded her arms. "You really are a cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch."

He struck his cane against the ground with a sudden burst of energy that took them both by surprise. "Then why did you come here? You know what I am! Did you really think the collapse of civilisation would make me more inclined to help people? To help you?" He had moved beyond exasperation into deep-seated fury. "How can you be so unrelentingly naïve? If I hadn't trained you myself, I really would think you're a moron!"

"I came here because I knew you were the world's one shot at getting a cure!" she fired back.

He struck the ground once more. "Weren't you listening! I tried! I tried to find the cause! I tried to turn the tide! I tried to save hi-" He broke off.

Her eyes had softened. Green caring pools he wanted to carve out of her face.

Green caring pools he wanted to curl up in and hide.

"You didn't have a team with you then," she said softly, soothing as Scotch. "No one to bounce off. No one to interact with. You don't play well with others, House, but you don't play at all unless there's someone else on the court."

His rigid grip on the cane relaxed a little; his shoulder ached. "I thought you hated sports metaphors."

Her mouth quirked in the echo of a smile. "I'm diversifying."

* * *

The worst thing about the apocalypse was the boredom.

Cameron was absorbed in a neuro journal which he'd already read three times and was proving impervious to anything he did to distract her.

Bouncing a ball off the wall next to her head had made no difference. Bouncing the ball _off_ her head had only caused her to move to another part of the office without engaging.

Once upon a time he could have predicted exactly what was needed to draw her out. To command her attention.

To break her.

It was an irritating loss of control.

But whatever question was burning a hole in there had finally made her look up.

"How d'you do it?"

"How'd I do what?"

"You still have supplies." She remained seated on the floor, legs crossed, expression calm. "You've got food, water, meds. Most hospitals were plundered in the first few months, even with a full contingent of people, and you've been alone since Chase left." He carefully marked her eyes as she said this. They didn't change. "So how d'you do it?" she repeated. "How come you haven't been overrun?"

"You ever heard of a potato gun?" he asked.

Cameron's mouth compressed. "House…"

"No, really," he insisted. "Potato guns, also known as pneumatic cannons, can be jerry-rigged from all sorts of everyday items, and hospital equipment makes them extra nifty. You could create something that can shoot things off, oh, say, a hospital roof, a good half-mile away. Double bonus, they hardly make a sound. In the right hands-" he wriggled his fingers "you could use them to direct Walkers to gather wherever you wanted. Or don't, as the case may be."

She stilled. "You created a perimeter? Using what? What are you firing?" Then her brows raised, and she answered her own question. "Blood? You've been shooting vials of blood off the building?" He nodded, pleased to see she hadn't totally lost her diagnostic edge. Her brows lowered again. "Whose blood?"

"Well, that's the downside to being a protected hermit. You only have one blood bank to draw on." He rolled up the sleeve of his jacket to reveal several puncture wounds.

"I figured those were just from using," she quipped.

"No, silly." He smirked back. "That's the other arm." He tugged his sleeve back down. "The good news is, the human body makes two million new red cells every second, so it doesn't take long to build up stores of them again. And I take my iron supplements every day like a good boy. Which means every few days I can use the cannon to shoot small amounts of blood off the roof. It draws in enough Walkers that most people keep away, but not so much it sends the dead into a feeding frenzy. And if people do come sniffing around, I have this neat little system that allows me to see them coming, and that's when I release the Home Alone style traps." He twisted the top of his cane and a blade popped out the bottom with a brutally serrated edge. Both hands shot to his face as he assumed a shocked expression. "Just call me Macauley."

She smiled.

It was a little too weary to be truly pre-apocalyptic, but it was close enough to send a jolt through him.

Then that irritating crease appeared between her eyes again.

"You rigged this place so you'd know if intruders approach?"

"Well, duh!" He rolled his eyes and began to explain in glorious detail how he'd managed this feat without constantly drawing on the fuel he had squirrelled away, dimly registering pleasure that finally someone was around again to appreciate his genius so he could sneer at them for it.

But Cameron didn't take the bait.

"So you saw me coming."

"Yeah, as I was saying – I used cans, wind chimes, bottles, anything that makes a noise, to create Downton Abbey style bell pulls and-"

"Which means you chose to let me in." It was her turn to smirk. "Why, House, has the apocalypse turned you sentimental?"

He got up from his chair and walked towards her with slow deliberate intent.

She watched him, still smirking, one eyebrow raised.

He took hold of her wrists and pulled her to her feet.

He was hoping for flustered but she still looked intolerably smug.

So sure of herself, and of him.

He leaned in close then bent down until his head was level with her breasts, millimetres away from nuzzling. "I figured it was my best shot at getting laid again before I die."

He peered up at her with the most lascivious look in his repertoire.

She stared steadily back, still amused… and triumphant.

XXX

House limped his way to Coma Guy's room, nursing his jaw. There was no TV there anymore (no Coma Guy, for that matter) but it was still the place he instinctively retreated to.

Well, that partly explained how Cameron had managed to survive. She was more than ready to turn innocuous objects into weapons.

In spite of the blossoming pain, he smiled.

Even post-apocalyptic Cameron had her triggers.

Apparently, over-the-shirt motorboating was one of them.

XXX

She was still carrying the neurology journal when she approached him four hours' later.

There was no sign on her face of what had occurred when she proposed that the epidemic was down to a parasitic infection that could be transferred respiratorily or via bodily fluids.

House immediately shot her down. "That was the first thing I checked for, you noob. If there was a parasite it would have shown up in one of the body scans."

"Not if the parasite was microscopic," Cameron pointed out. "Did you test the blood for markers?"

"Serology and blood smears," he confirmed.

She accepted this without a blink. "What about a mutation of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease?"

He sighed ostentatiously. "It's been nineteen months. The living would be showing signs of symptoms. Did you go _un_ Doctor yourself while you were gone?"

"Not if it's a mutation," she countered. "The symptoms could be dormant. As you said, it's only been nineteen months. For all we know the living may spontaneously start showing symptoms five years down the line from Patient Zero, without requiring the trigger of a bite or ingestion of saliva."

He considered this. "We'll need to regularly check our bloods and chart any fluctuations."

She pulled a rubber tourniquet from her pocket.

"I thought you might say that."

He tsked at her. "No one likes a smuggie, Cameron."

She continued as if he hadn't spoken. "We also need to get our hands on a Walker and run further tests. I'm assuming you checked Thirteen and Foreman's saliva after they turned?"

He rolled his eyes. "Duh. There were no signs of rabies prions or CJD in their spinal fluids." She nodded and made a note on the pad she was carrying then stretched an arm out, tourniquet in hand. "Give me your arm."

He obeyed and watched her work for a moment before curiosity got the better of him. "Aren't you going to ask why I didn't retain them for further testing after they turned?"

"Nope," she said abstractedly as she inserted the needle. "You'll just spin me some yarn about having exhausted all possibilities and it not being worth the effort and risk of keeping them."

He pressed a hand to his heart, pretending to look offended. "I'm not lying. I really think your tests are highly risky and a ridiculous waste of time."

She carefully stoppered the vial of his blood and removed the tourniquet. "If you really thought that, you wouldn't let me take your blood." She proffered her arm; he stared at her, trying to read her eyes. They softened a little, and he wasn't sure whether he felt relieved or annoyed. "House… it's okay that you killed them. No one would want to stare at a loved one looking like that."

He started drawing her blood. "Actually, Thirteen got loose and almost took a chunk out of Chase. He took out Foreman after I killed her."

She blinked at that, and he felt a disproportionate relief that he could still deceive her.

"Well, that doesn't really change anything. Samples from two Walkers aren't enough to be conclusive. We need a proper clinical trial. With a full work-up each time. "

House covered his eyes with his hands. "Do you really need me to explain why that's not possible?"

"We need to test as many as possible," she went on, oblivious. "We have to cross-reference, and keep a look out for any anomalies or patterns."

"Well, gosh darn it, Cameron, I'm afraid we're a little short on walking corpses. So unless you're volunteering…" When she didn't say anything in response, just continued to look at him steadily, he abandoned his sarcasm and became more serious. "Going out there once is asking for trouble. Going out there enough times for a clinical trial amounts to a death wish. The odds will shorten every time you leave. And for what? A pipe dream. There is no cure!"

Her jaw set stubbornly. "I don't believe that. And I don't believe you really believe that. You sent Foreman and Thirteen out to bring you Walkers, and no matter what you like to pretend you wouldn't have done that if you thought they couldn't make it back."

He leaned forward to make sure she could fully register his exasperation. "Uh, _yeah_ , and they _still_ got bit. And that was before the dead outnumbered the living."

She was infuriatingly calm. "They weren't as careful as we'll be."

"We?"

"We can do it together. Catch Walkers together."

"And leave this place unoccupied." He shook his head.

"Fine, then. You stay. I'll go."

To his eternal annoyance, he had to stop his hand from shooting out to grab her.

"What did I say about being stupid?"

"Come on, House." The look she gave him was wry. "Even with just the two of us, supplies are starting to dwindle. We're going to have to start foraging sometime. Not to mention tapping cars for fuel. Might as well double-up with bringing the occasional Walker in, too."

"Oh, sure. No problem. It's not like they're unstoppable killers you can't possibly subdue unless you kill them again. Oh, wait!" He returned to sarcasm with a vengeance.

"If you chop off their hands and jaws, they become docile. You can even lead them on a rope."

He stared at her, anger arrested. "Now, how would you have learned that?" A surprisingly disturbing image of her lopping off body parts for fun popped into his head. He'd been known to use a homemade slingshot to hassle them himself. In the early days, while some idiots still insisted they were human, and before it became clear doing anything to draw their attention was a Very Bad Idea.

But somehow the idea of Cameron doing it, of her taking it one step further…

"There are still humans alive outside," she replied. "Information became a valuable thing to share… or take."

He waited. "And what did that little tidbit cost you?"

Cameron didn't reply, and he barely bit back his frustration. It happened far too much for his liking, but to acknowledge that would be to cede the power.

He ran a finger over his jaw. His stubble was closer to a beard these days. Partly because razor blades were far more useful as a means of keeping the perimeter traps sharp and partly because… who the hell cares?

"And how do you propose we capture one without drawing a pack?" He spoke with false sweetness.

"We can focus the blood on one of the entrances, and once the Walkers start gathering there, throw down some rats to keep them occupied. We'd be too far away for them to smell us, so there'd be no reason for them to try to break through. And even if they do, your booby traps will stop them penetrating any further."

"And what if you're wrong?" he challenged. "What if they do manage to break through? We could lose a whole wing of the hospital or more."

She spoke calmly. "It's only a matter of time before that happens, House. Or before a group comes along that's big enough to decide it's worth the risk of getting through the Walkers to raid the building. Our only real shot at living out our lives naturally is finding a cure. And if I really am wrong, you'll still have time to stick yourself with that vial you carry around before we get overrun."

He must have twitched because her mouth quirked. "Come on, House, there's no way you didn't have an opiate exit route. Just in case."

* * *

The worst thing about the apocalypse was that it could still surprise you.

They found the mother just inside the outer barricade, her naked baby cuddled against her chest.

"She must have died in childbirth," Cameron said unnecessarily, making House roll his eyes.

Then the tiny baby stirred.

Cameron dashed forward before jolting to an abrupt halt as the other side of the woman came into view.

The baby must have been stillborn – that was the only explanation for why its corpse was slathering and yowling in a terrible parody of a newborn's cry.

The only explanation for why the woman had allowed it to chew through her flesh unchecked.

The blood looked fresh.

"Natal teeth," House spoke automatically. Mechanically. "One in two thousand babies are born with them. Tough luck for the mom…"

Cameron was watching the thing that had once been a baby. When she spoke it sounded as though her voice came from far away. "Good luck for us." He cocked his head in question. "She hasn't turned yet. We can carry her inside and strap her to a gurney. If she doesn't turn right away, we can test her as an infected and as a Walker, and we don't even have to leave the hospital."

Now that she'd said it, he couldn't believe he'd needed her to.

He turned his attention to the monster at its mother's breast.

And hesitated.

It was Cameron who tenderly covered it in her shirt and lifted it into her arms, wrapping its face so there was no risk of a bite.

It was Cameron who whispered something in its ear… then bashed what was left of its brains against the building.

She tossed the quiet bloody heap over the wall of the outer barricade.

When she turned back round, there were no tears in her eyes, only resolve.

"Let's get back to work."

* * *

The worst thing about the apocalypse was the coffee.

Even with just the two of them supplies were dwindling. And one batch had already gone stale.

Her eyes, deep as oceans and just as impenetrable, were weighing him.

"What are you feeling guilty about?"

He sent her an innocent look of enquiry and she tapped the mug and cocked a knowing eyebrow. "You brought me coffee."

"Who says I'm feeling guilty?" he replied sweetly. "Maybe I just want something."

"If you wanted something, you'd just take it." One side of her mouth quirked. "That was true even before the apocalypse."

His gaze rested on the crooked curve.

"Not always." She retained the smile but turned her back on him, returning to her task. That was when he struck, quietly but brutally. "How old was your baby when it died?"

She didn't turn round. Just continued her quiet inventory of the remaining drugs.

"Aren't you gonna ask me how I knew?" he continued, when he realised she wasn't going to answer.

"You're House." She sounded absent-minded. "You always know."

"You have silvery marks on your stomach," he continued, as if she'd asked the question. "Stretch marks that have had time to fade. Unless you piled on the pounds and then lost them again just as rapidly – unlikely considering your lifelong borderline eating disorder – then they were caused by rapid expansion in the third trimester. Judging by the faintness of those marks, your pregnancy ended around two years ago. Just before the outbreak started." Cameron didn't respond. "You had a baby," he completed. "And it died."

"I had a husband, too," she replied, still abstracted.

House watched the back of her head. "The woman outside the hospital – the baby. Is that what happened to your family? You had to kill them?"

She finally turned round to face him.

"No." Her eyes were totally opaque. "The Walkers didn't leave enough of them to animate."

* * *

The best thing about the apocalypse was her breasts.

Or so he told her. Leering with overblown relish any time she exerted herself enough to make them move.

But it was he who faltered like a virgin the day she pulled her shirt over her head.

He noted in a detached fashion that he'd called it right years before; Cameron didn't bother with a bra. Didn't really need to.

The rest of him, decidedly not detached, noted her increasing closeness.

"Changed your mind already?" he tried to bluster. "I seem to recall you hitting me in the face with a phone and saying not even if I was the last man alive?"

She cradled his face in her hands.

Her mouth was hot and sweet.

"Close enough."

* * *

The worst thing about the apocalypse was that it never stopped taking.

With each month that passed something else ran low or ran out, with no hope of replenishing it.

Foraging helped keep them afloat but their unwillingness (or rather House's unwillingness) to go too far or risk encountering larger groups restricted how much they could supplement what they had.

But there was enough to stay alive.

And with each month that passed, judging by the increasing numbers of the dead and decreasing parties they had to hide from, that was a huge achievement in itself.

But it wasn't enough for Cameron.

XXX

"We need another Walker."

House frowned his disapproval. "No. Leave it another week. We both need more time for our bloods to recover."

"But we're so close." Her breath was no longer sweet, not since the toothpaste had run out. But neither was his.

She didn't seem to care. The act of being close, of reassuring herself that they were still here, still alive, was far more important to her.

And truth be told, he enjoyed having her close.

She was an absolute wildcat in the sack.

He wondered if she'd always been that way, or if that, too, had been brought about by the world ending.

Some things about Cameron had changed, but had there been enough?

His hands encircled her wrists; hers were cupped around his face.

"There's no point in catching another Walker."

Her eyes narrowed as if she was trying to pull the answer from his head via telekinesis. "Why not?"

"Because we've taken our research as far as we can with the dead test subjects." He gave her a level look." We need to test the serum on someone who's exhibiting symptoms but not yet dead."

Her head tilted slowly. "You're talking about experimenting on a live human being? Deliberately infecting them when we don't know for sure if we can cure them?"

He nodded back, waiting to see if she'd balk. He was long past the point of being surprised at her acceptance of killing at need, but that was the point. It had always been at need.

Whether it was a Walker or the long-haired guy who had gotten too close, Cameron had proven she had no problem with self-defence. Or House-defence, for that matter. It had been his scalp the greasy-haired hobo had nearly taken off. It had been Cameron who had taken him out first.

But this wasn't self-defence.

If the serum failed, it would be cold, calculated murder.

Or at least that was how pre-apocalypse Cameron would have seen it.

With a special brand of self-righteousness that could ordain it wrong to take the life of someone under your care, even if he was a proven violator of human rights. Even if he was a mass-murderer. Pre-apocalypse Cameron would end a marriage over that belief.

Would post-apocalypse Cameron end an alliance?

The crease appeared between her eyes. "That's gonna be a tall order, House. We don't want to risk it turning into a fight – that's more likely to leave us with a corpse on our hands." Once he would have grinned at her arrogance, that she took it for granted they'd win. That was before she'd unveiled the firearms and ammo she'd brought with her. Before he'd seen her at work with that machete. He still didn't know where she'd gotten it. But he knew just how deadly those tiny hands could be when they wielded it. "We'd have to engineer them getting bitten but make it look like an accident so they still trust us enough to come back to the hospital." Her eyes were cool as she weighed the scenario, not too far off cold.

He'd always wanted Cameron to open her eyes. To fully face reality.

Now she had.

There was a bitter taste in his mouth. He blamed his breakfast.

Ground acorns helped bulk out the oatmeal, but they did nothing for the flavour.

He got to his feet, cane in hand. He had to lean more heavily on it these days. The iron supplements had long since run out.

"I'll do it. I'm better at manipulation than you are."

She placed her hands on his chest and smirked up at him. "I don't think that's such a good idea, House. You were pretty scary-looking even before the Yeti beard. And of the two of us, who has the more trustworthy face? Besides, it makes more sense for you to stay here and prep the lab. We're working with a tight window – we don't know how long we'll have before they succumb to the infection."

He couldn't fault her logic.

She turned to go.

His hand shot out and closed round her forearm; it could almost do it twice over.

She'd always been tiny but the increasing lack of food had skimmed her down to the bone.

"You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?"

She smiled in tired amusement. "Come on, House. Don't you know me better by now?"

XXX

The rattling cans of the OR's side entrance had him dashing to meet her.

He waited impatiently as she manoeuvred the nail gun trap then slipped into the building.

At sight of her the ice in his stomach thawed a little then he frowned in consternation when he realised she was alone.

"Couldn't find anyone alive?"

Her eyes glittered strangely. "Don't worry: I got you your test subject."

She pulled back her sleeve.

It was a neat single bite, almost surgically precise, as if she'd allowed the Walker to penetrate her flesh just so and no longer.

It didn't matter.

It was already enflamed.

He stared at it, uncharacteristically frozen.

"What happened? How did it get the jump on you?" She was always so careful!

…she was always so careful.

He raised his eyes to hers in sudden scathing realisation.

"You were never going to look for a human, were you?"

She shook her head. Her eyes a clear green. "Of course not, House. I'm not a psychopath." Her mouth quirked in a familiar move that sent unwanted emotions streaming through him.

He yanked her into the carefully prepared operating room and shoved her down onto the gurney, snapping the restraints into place.

All the while a voice in his head screamed to go faster, faster, faster!

She was so full of puncture holes, he struggled to find a viable vein. She must have been testing more batches on herself when he hadn't been looking.

She didn't even wince as he repeatedly missed, just bore it with noble fortitude.

It made him want to jab her harder.

This emotion he could recognise. This emotion he could admit to.

"This isn't a fairytale, Cameron." His voice was vibrant with loathing as the IV finally went in. "You think because you've been selfless – 'heroic'," his lips shaped the word with contemptuous sarcasm, "that that means we'll find the cure? That you'll be saved? Just because you do something noble, doesn't mean the good guys will win. The world isn't fair! The world has never been fair!" His fingers flew as he spoke, racing to put in the central line for the cocktail of drugs they had so carefully constructed.

"I know that." He scoured her expression, looking for sentiment, for blind, infuriating faith, but found only weariness. "I'm not asking it to be." Her respiration was already hitching. "I just want you to end the nightmare. And if you can't-" She emitted an involuntary shudder as the infection inexorably spread. "Then I'm done trying to live in it."

He stared at her in betrayed fury, shaking with adrenaline. "You promised. You promised me when you came here that you wouldn't be an idiot!"

She smiled at him, tender and bitter. "Surely you know by now?" Her eyes sagged closed as the morphine kicked in. "Everybody lies."

* * *

The worst thing about the apocalypse was her eyes.

Rheumy and blank and filled with mindless rage.

 _fin_


End file.
